


The Roses of Cintra

by theobscurepotato



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Character Death, Geraskier Week, M/M, Sad and Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22798495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theobscurepotato/pseuds/theobscurepotato
Summary: For Geraskier week, day 7: Destiny“Better than a bottled Djinn,” she says, and smiles as if at some private joke. “Your own desires, given shape into destiny. But you can only choose one. So choose well.”
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 63
Kudos: 433





	The Roses of Cintra

Cintra, Year 1249

Jaskier isn’t mad at Geralt, exactly, for storming out of Calanthe’s court and leaving him behind. The witcher kills monsters with the speed of a prize stallion but processes emotions with the speed of drunk turtle. He’ll need space, and time, so Jaskier resigns himself to stumbling along the streets of Cintra in the moonlight back towards the inn. With any luck, Geralt will have tossed a few coins toward their tab before he departed. 

_“Apologies, your Grace,  
Yet I cannot show my face  
But I have come to plead my case  
For fair Pavetta’s love”_

He sings softly to himself as he walks through the streets, piecing through the first rough lines. The night truly had the makings of his best ballad yet. 

“Brave of you to sing during the witching hour.”

Jaskier spins around. There, where just a second ago he could have sworn was just a gap between houses, a dark-haired woman watches from behind a metal gate. Jaskier bows in quick greeting.

“Dear lady, after the night I’ve had, I need my singing to give me bravery. Not the other way around.”

Even with her face half-hidden in shadows, Jaskier sees her smile. Her white dress provides a pleasing contrast to her chestnut hair. Vines curl around the metal fence and the faint smell of roses permeates the air. A beautiful woman standing in a moonlight garden: there are worse encounters. Jaskier smiles back.

“Come closer, bard. I would like to know you.”

Jaskier hangs back. “My apologies, beautiful mistress. But it is a strange night, and to be frank, about one minute ago, this was an alley, not a garden. And as lovely as my voice is, it usually takes a little more persuasion to get a vision like yourself to want to know me.” 

“Traveling with Geralt of Rivia has been good for you, Julian,” she says, and laughs. 

“And how do you know my name?” Jaskier remains smiling, but there is an edge to his voice. 

“Surely you know the legend of the roses of Cintra? Surely you, a bard, at least know the songs.” She begins to sing, gently, _“The Rose of Cintra, tells my destiny –”_

_“Love, be wary of the thorns_ ,” Jaskier sings back. 

“Come into the garden, bard. It is your choice, but I won’t appear to you again.”

The gate opens without a touch. Jaskier takes a deep breath and steps into the garden. Roses of every color and shape and condition, as far as he can see. Their perfume is overpowering and he feels immediately light-headed. 

“Better than a bottled Djinn,” she says, and smiles as if at some private joke. “Your own desires, given shape into destiny. But you can only choose one. So choose well.”

Jaskier looks around at the thousands of blooms unfurled in the moonlight. 

_Maybe one of those flying chairs hit me in the head when Pavetta whirled ‘round. Or maybe Roach finally kicked me in the head and this whole night is just a dream.  
Or maybe_, a smaller voice whispers, _it is real and you would be wise to leave._

Jaskier straightens his shoulders and walks further into the garden. From the corner of his eye he spots a deep red rose. He leans his face toward it and:  
_  
He is the greatest singer in the Continent. He is known far and wide as Master Dandelion, never jeered at or pushed away like Jaskier, the fresh-faced singer in Posada. He strums the lute and turns toward the gathered audience, and meets Geralt’s golden gaze. Ten years since Jaskier left the Path to pursue his career, and here is Geralt, looking at him with pride, and understanding, and a little sorrow._

Jaskier nearly falls backwards, he pulls away so fast. 

“Not to your liking, bard?” 

He stares at the bloom like it’s a viper. “Not exactly. But you already knew that, I’m sure.”

She grins at him and he shakes his head, turns toward a winding vine of tea-colored roses. He leans down, gently, and breathes:  
_  
“And with The Chameleon open, you will always have a place to return to, even when this bard is too old and weary to join you on your Path,” he says, making an exaggerated bow, smiling up at Geralt.  
Geralt laughs, lifts Jaskier’s chin up with his fingertips. The witcher kisses him soundly. “I will always return to you, you fool. You didn’t need to bribe me.” _

Jaskier’s eyes remain closed as he lifts his head from the bloom. He stands for a moment before moving deeper into the garden. The next bloom to catch his eye is a dusky blue:  
_  
“Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove, we confer upon you the title of Master of the Seven Liberal Arts.”  
Jaskier looks upon the crowd gathered in the Oxenfurt plaza. Geralt nods at him. There is a girl child with a shock of blonde hair perched on his shoulders and she blows phantom kisses at him in congratulations. His heart swells with love for the two of them.  
_  
He moves through the garden slowly, running his hands over petals, pressing his face into the soft blooms. Sometimes he smiles, sometimes tears spring to his eyes. But his choice remains unmade until he finally spots a rose tucked away in the shadows and approaches. 

A white rose.

A perfect, white rose without a single blemish on any petal or surrounding leaf. Jaskier cups the blossom in both hands and inhales. Minutes pass before he finally turns and smiles at her, tears running down his face, fingers still brushing the petals. 

She nods at him. “I see you have found the one that calls to you. Take it and depart from here with my blessing.” 

Jaskier straightens, steps away from the flower. His eyes are bright. 

“Thank you, lovely mistress,” he says, and bows. “But I will make my own way, same as any other.”

She frowns, then, and narrows her eyes. “Few are given the chance. Don’t be foolish, bard. My magic is true.” 

Jaskier pauses. His eyes dart back to the white rose and then back to her face. He smiles at her sadly.

“When I was younger,” Jaskier says, “I fell for another student in the temple school. I gave her a glass bauble and to impress her, told her it was a sapphire. It was quite a good imitation. She kissed me for it, wore it around her neck. And every time I looked at her, I saw the shiny, hollow imitation and was reminded of its falsity.” 

He bows again, deeper. “My love is not one for Destiny’s chains. Or glass baubles, for that matter.” 

She grins, showing all her teeth. “Eloquently stated, bard. Very well. I leave your destiny in your own hands.”

“Thank you, gracious mistress.” Jaskier walks quickly toward the open gate. The roses’ perfume is already beginning to fade. The tears on his face have dried. 

“Bard, one last thing.” 

Jaskier turns, a step away from leaving. The woman stands in the garden, a vision in white.

“For your own sake, never return to Cintra. I tell you this as a kindness.”

* * *

Cintra, Year 1263

Geralt moves like a shadow through the thick grey haze, the stench of death heavy in his nose and throat. 

The streets of Cintra are filled with fire and ash. Bodies lay slumped against the wooden houses of the inner keep. In the dim evening light, they are nearly indistinguishable from the refuse piled on the sides of the road. 

_At least they’ll not lack for kindling to burn the dead_ , Geralt thinks, and turns, when a bit of red fabric catches his eye from underneath all the dust and soot. And Geralt crosses the road in three strides, kneels in the filth and his hands hover, unsure, over what is unmistakably Jaskier’s prone form. 

He hasn’t seen Jaskier since the mountaintop. His anger had clung to him for days before festering into shame, a shame that kept him from tracking the bard down. Something twists in his stomach as an even older memory surfaces – _I’d like it to not be the last thing he remembers_ – as he pulls him into a sitting position and feels at his throat for a pulse. 

Jaskier turns his head and coughs weakly. His pulse flutters like a trapped bird under Geralt’s palm. He looks hazily into the witcher’s face. 

“Geralt?” he whispers, reaches out a trembling hand. His blue eyes widen with shock as his fingertips brush across Geralt’s face. “You’re really here.” 

Geralt can smell the blood on him, but the bard is so covered with soot and the filth of the street that he can’t determine the extent of his injuries. Jaskier coughs again and slumps a little against the wall. 

“Long time, no see,” the bard mumbles. 

Geralt swallows, tries for normal: “Jaskier. What are you doing here?”

Jaskier’s eyes are sliding out of focus. Geralt pats his face. “Jaskier, don’t fall asleep. Sing something, tell me a story, just don’t shut up.” 

“Different request from your usual,” Jaskier says, and smiles with blood in his teeth. His blue eyes shine brightly in his pale face, his hair matted with blood and soot. “I’m searching for the roses of Cintra.”

Geralt laughs out loud at that, bitterly. “For a myth? You risk your life for a myth? Probably some bard a hundred years ago started rumour of that nonsense. Stumbled drunk into a rose garden and thought he dreamed his destiny.”

“Not a myth.” Jaskier grabs for his wrist, grips it tightly. “I found it, fourteen years ago. The night of Pavetta’s feast. After.” 

“You never spoke of it to me,” Geralt says, frowning. 

“You had already fled. Leaving me to stumble back to the inn on my own, I might add.” 

“Speak of it now, if you’d like,” Geralt says. “I need to assess your wounds. Keep talking.” 

Jaskier winces as Geralt presses his fingers into his scalp and begins to speak in a rush:

“That night, on my way back to the inn…A woman, a beautiful woman all in white beckoned to me from a garden of roses. She offered me the gift of a rose. But told me to choose carefully because I could only have one. You know the legend. There were hundreds of flowers,” –he pauses as a coughing fit overtakes him, and after a minute resumes—"each containing a permutation of my fate. In one, I was a Master of the Seven Liberal Arts. In another, I owned a tavern in Novigrad. Fame, women, and wine, just for the choice of the right flower.”

“Hmm.” Geralt presses gently along Jaskier’s arms. The smell of death and blood is so strong in the street that he only trusts his touch to judge the bard’s condition.

“In another, I was the greatest singer in the Continent,” he whispers. “And they taught my songs at Oxenfurt.” The tears roll openly down his face. Geralt flinches in the face of his pain and sorrow.

_These are all lives he could have had, without you. Lives he deserved instead of nearly two decades following you on the Path. Where his talents were valued and appreciated by more than just a witcher and a horse and miles of empty wilderness._

“Then why,” and Geralt tries to bleed some of the anger from his own voice, tries to not dig his fingers into Jaskier’s shoulders, “Why would you not take a blessing when one was offered?” 

“Because I couldn’t take that choice from you.” Jaskier sighs, meets Geralt’s gaze evenly. “Our fates were tied in each and every one. So in the end, I told her, thank you lovely mistress, but I will make my own way, same as any other. But then the war came, and I thought that just maybe I could find a future to stop it. Trade my happiness for the greater good, or some other noble bullshit.”

“So I returned to Cintra. And here we are.” Jaskier closes his eyes. “Please, Geralt, no more prodding. Just let me rest a bit.” 

There is a rasp to the bard’s voice and a whisper in his breath that Geralt can’t help but notice. It calls his attention even more than Jaskier’s words. The bard’s face is grey, even under the smudge of ash. 

“Hang on, Jaskier. I am going to move you a little ways from the road. I don’t want the Nilfgardian patrol to see us. I’ll carry you if I have to, but we can’t spend the night here.” 

Geralt wraps his arm around him and feels the wetness seeping through the back of Jaskier’s doublet. His entire back is sticky with blood; the wound is nearly a hand deep and thrice as long. The sickly-sweet scent of death permeates the air and Geralt realizes with a low, awful twist of his stomach that the source of that scent is not from the surrounding grey, charred bodies. 

The blood is Jaskier’s. 

The wound is mortal. 

The world stops, and narrows, and expands again into a crushing grief that steals Geralt’s breath away. 

Jaskier’s eyes remain closed. He shivers when Geralt moves but stays silent.

“Tell me,” Geralt feels like his tongue is too big in his mouth, like the words are not getting out correctly. He takes the bard’s hand in his, “Tell me the best one, Jaskier. If you had chosen our fates.” 

The bard shivers again and Geralt lets Jaskier lean into his shoulder. His hair is soft under Geralt’s chin. 

“We went to the coast,” Jaskier says simply. His voice is soft, growing fainter. “It’s why, that day on the mountain –I tried to lead us to it.”

_Our fates were tied in each and every one._

Geralt understands. Maybe has always understood. 

Jaskier coughs, and blood dots his lips. His whole body trembles. “Geralt? I'm sorry, I'm just so very tired. I’d like to sleep, if you’ll stay with me a while.” 

“I’ll stay with you, Jaskier,” Geralt whispers, and wraps him in his arms. 

Jaskier sighs and leans back in his arms. “Tomorrow?” he murmurs. 

“Tomorrow. You can tell me tomorrow. When we leave. Together.”

When the moon rises, Geralt is still clutching Jaskier’s body to his chest. The air suddenly, strangely, smells of roses.

* * *

_  
The coast is beautiful._

_Jaskier strums a few chords before setting the lute aside. He lays back on the soft grass. The sun is warm on his face. The breeze rustles his hair.  
Below, on the beach, a blonde child darts in and out of the waves, cutting at them with a wooden sword._

_Jaskier turns his head, and Geralt smiles.  
_

**Author's Note:**

> I promised I could never hurt these soft boys but this idea bit me and wouldn't let me go. 
> 
> Idea for the rose garden came from a collection of children's stories by Patricia C. Wrede, "Book of Enchantments."
> 
> If you need some softness after this, may I recommend my other fic, [**over the hills and far away**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/22168966) in apology? Or just yell at me in the comments.


End file.
